


Rustling Bushes and Shitty Disguises

by Nny



Series: Month 1: Quantity (tumblr fic) [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Actual Mountain Lions, Beacon Hills Thinks Derek's A Creeper, Disguise, M/M, Minor Injuries, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:12:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1855948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the next week Derek runs into Stiles way more than is usual but he doesn’t speak to him once. </p>
<p>He feels eyes on the back of his neck while ordering a coffee, and gets out of the shop to see familiar sneakers disappearing around a corner. There’s a suspiciously twitching newspaper in a hooded sweatshirt watching him from a park bench; the evening he looks over at a stop light to see a blue jeep that’s apparently driving itself; that one time in the grocery store when Stiles pretends to be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rustling Bushes and Shitty Disguises

"Oh shit, I’m an idiot, I shouldn’t have done that," Stiles says, and scuttles backwards across the ground like a disoriented crab. Derek, who’s leaning back on his elbows, pushes himself up to sitting, then reconsiders and shuffles backwards until he can rest against a tree. His ribs hurt. 

"It’s fine," he says, and scowls. This is really not a conversation he wants to have while there are still bits of mountain lion - actual, genuine mountain lion - in his hair. 

"Fine like fine?" Stiles snaps, "or fine like ‘fine in comparison with the rest of my romantic encounters, most of which ended in _dead people_ ’?" Stiles slaps a hand over his own mouth, which is great because Derek’s too far away to do it for him. 

"It’s _fine_ , Stiles,” he says, and he figures he has just about enough working parts to push himself upright now. The wave of pain is pretty near overwhelming and he stays bent over for a second or two, one hand on the tree to keep himself standing. Looking at twigs and leaf-mold and a truly excessive number of spiders is a much easier option than looking at Stiles anyway, right now. A quick sideways glance showed that Stiles is running his thumb across his lips, looking kind of shocked, and that is just nothing that Derek needs to see. 

"I’m sorry," Stiles says softly, and Derek pushes himself upright and starts walking. 

"I know you are," he says. 

When he gets out of the shower later that evening his phone is lit up on the couch, packed with seventeen texts from Stiles, one from Scott. Scott’s, which he figures is easier to deal with, says _Stiles sez r u ok & not violated or murdery_. Derek rolls his eyes and turns off his phone. 

 

*

 

Derek stops off in town the next day. He parks at the 7-11, goes for groceries, stops in at the hardware store and has a conversation with Hank about 4” square edge baseboard molding, about which Derek cares approximately none. He hauls his paper bags back across to the parking lot and shoves them in the trunk, then leans back against his car and folds his arms, staring back at the people who are obviously watching him, and he’s pretty sure at least three of them are on the phone with the Beacon Hills PD. Once he makes eye contact he smiles, slowly; one of them drops their phone. Simple pleasures. 

The logical next step is to take his groceries home, put them away, clean up a little, wait for the next inevitable disaster, but it’s nothing that can’t wait. For mountain lions he gets coffee, he figures, and he can take it across to the library after and check out the recent returns. Mrs Morales still works there, same way she did when he was a kid, and she’s about the only person in town who scowls at him for things he actually _did_. 

There’s not much of a line in the coffee shop, because it’s a Tuesday and school still hasn’t quite let out. The girl behind the counter looks a little bemused by his order; there’s a possibility they’re trained out of recognizing anything with fewer than three words. The music’s okay, though. 

He considers settling into one of the armchairs by the window but Beacon Hills is a goldfish bowl, more for him than most. The central library on Main Street is recently refurbished, light and open and a social space, and this coffee shop’s the same; he’d rather cross the road to where it’s small and dark and dusty and crowded with books, lit with flickering bulbs and streaky windows, practically devoid of human life, where it’s more his speed. 

He shoves through the glass door, stopping outside to take a first sip. There’s a yelp and a scuffle across the road and Derek looks over, resigned, at the familiar blue jeep. 

"What the hell, Stiles?" he hears Scott hiss as he crosses the road, rounds the side of the jeep. 

"Who ees thees Stiles?" 

Derek stops. _Stares_. 

"What," he says. 

It’s like someone’s killed some poor defenseless creature and stuck it to Stiles’ face. It’s fuzzy and shapeless and of no discernible color, genuinely the worst fake mustache that Derek has ever seen, and the fact that that is actually something he has categorized kind of makes him regret all of his life choices so far. 

"I am not from your country," Stiles says, haughty and terribly accented, and spins on his heel, crossing the street and disappearing in to the coffee shop like there are rabid squirrels on his tail. Derek looks at Scott and raises an eyebrow. Scott just makes a face and shrugs. 

 

*

 

Over the next week Derek runs into Stiles way more than is usual but he doesn’t speak to him once. 

He feels eyes on the back of his neck while ordering a coffee, and gets out of the shop to see familiar sneakers disappearing around a corner. There’s a suspiciously twitching newspaper in a hooded sweatshirt watching him from a park bench; the evening he looks over at a stop light to see a blue jeep that’s apparently driving itself; that one time in the grocery store when Stiles pretends to be dead. 

He’s actually a little unnerved when he goes a full twenty four hours without any rustling bushes or shitty disguises, and he’s almost expecting Scott’s call. 

"Hey man," Scott says, sounding tired and a little breathless, with a background of horribly familiar sounds. 

"Are you at the hospital?" Derek asks, then before Scott can answer, before he can take another breath, "is Stiles okay?" 

"He’s fine," Scott says quickly. "Just lacrosse, he needs a couple stitches in his finger. Mom said he shouldn’t drive after and I have to get to work, so could you - "

"I’ll be there in ten minutes," Derek says. 

He gets there in less than that, and he’s a little ashamed of it. The receptionist stares after him, tries to call him back, but Derek just follows the familiar mutter of low-voiced complaints coming from a little curtained alcove. 

Stiles is sitting sideways on the bed, legs dangling and cleats dropping crumbs of mud onto the floor. There’s blood soaked into the hem of his gray shirt, and it takes Derek a second to tear his eyes away from it, to look up at the nurse who’s staring at him, open-mouthed. 

"I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be in here, sir," he says, diplomatic but still edging towards the curtain. 

"It’s okay," Stiles says. "He’s my buddy." A weird look crosses his face and his eyes flick to Derek and away again without actually meeting his eyes. "He’s my lift, anyway. I can go, right?" 

"You can go," the nurse says, but he still sounds a little dubious. "Keep it clean and dry, any redness or swelling you get right back in here, okay?" 

"Right," Stiles says, and flaps his good hand dismissively, "I know the drill." Derek rolls his eyes as the nurse eyes him again, then trails Stiles out to reception. 

"If you could try not to imply domestic abuse, that’d be -"

"Shut up," Stiles says. "I am not talking to you." 

He gets the receptionist to call his dad, who’s stuck at work, to confirm insurance details, and then marches out to Derek’s car and slumps in the passenger seat like being driven home is the worst of all possible injustices. 

Derek reaches over to tug Stiles’ seatbelt, make sure it’s secure, then starts up the engine. 

"Still not talking to me?" he says. 

"Nothing to talk about," Stiles says, and when Derek gives him a sidelong look, "I have surgical amnesia." 

"I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing," Derek says, putting on his blinker and pulling out of the lot.

According to Stiles it is, in fact, a thing, and Derek lasts through medical justification and two case studies before he slaps his hand over Stiles’ mouth… and then regrets it when it takes Stiles a second to stop talking, a torturous moment of hot breath and soft lips moving against the palm of his hand. Derek swallows hard and pulls his hand back. 

There’s silence the rest of the trip home, but Derek grabs Stiles’ arm before he can get out of the car. 

"Pretty sure it’s not a thing from _stitches_ , Stiles,” he says, and he tries to keep his voice even but there’s maybe something a little accusing threaded through it. Stiles looks away. 

"I don’t want to talk about this with you," Stiles says, and what can Derek say to that? He lets go, waits until Stiles is safely inside, drives home. 

Whatever. It’s fine. 

 

*

 

Derek doesn’t see Stiles, that week. The one time he does Stiles looks kind of appalled to see him, eyes wide above the box of poptarts he’s clutching to his chest, and Derek just turns around and leaves the store because Stiles will get over it eventually, and right now he doesn’t need that particular expression’s kick in the gut. He orders pizza and glares so hard the guy even returns his tip. 

He’s sprawled on his sofa reading something about witches that weekend when his phone buzzes against his hip. 

_Have you seen Stiles_ , it says, from Scott. Then, again, before he can respond, _have you seen Stiles his dads freaking out_. 

Scott answers in two rings. 

"Not since Wednesday, what’s happened," Derek says. 

"I don’t know," Scott says, and he sounds a little frantic. "He texted me something about scat, but now he’s not answering his phone, and his dad said he didn’t come home after lacrosse." 

"He’s in the preserve," Derek says, because if - if his text is what Derek thinks it is - there are still dangerous creatures on the prowl, where the hell else would Stiles be? "Head for the parking lot by the head of the river trail, I’ll meet you there." 

It’s dark out, and colder than it’s been. Derek gives Scott the flashlight from his trunk because he still insists on thinking like a human, and they split up at the trail head, take opposite directions. He can hear Scott yelling for Stiles long after the sound of crashing through bushes has faded so Derek focuses on his sense of smell, tunes everything else out. 

There’s no trace of the candy-sweet medication-laced scent of Stiles but there is something familiar, something musky and wild. Derek thinks _scat_ and rolls his eyes, follows his nose into the trees. 

Something in his stomach ties itself in a knot when he hears Stiles’ voice, its bitter complaints, because a complaining Stiles is rarely a hurt Stiles, and his chest loosens enough to take his first deep breath for a while. 

"You’re like the boy who cried mountain lion," Derek says, when he reaches the base of the tree, and Stiles glares down at him, wild-haired and mud-streaked like an affronted kitten in the crook of his branch. 

"For that there would have to be no _actual mountain lion_ ,” Stiles yells, and Derek takes an exaggerated look around the nearby ground. 

"Pretty sure it’s gone," he says. There’s a moment’s embarrassed silence from above. 

"Look, I have no idea how I got up here," Stiles says, and Derek can’t help but choke out a laugh. 

"I’ll catch you," he says. 

"No," Stiles says, flatly. 

"I can catch you," Derek repeats, and Stiles flails a little then clutches his branch again. 

"Whole _worlds_ of no, Derek, okay?” 

"Unless you think I’ve got a ladder in my pants," he says reasonably. 

"Not in _those_ pants,” Stiles mutters, but he’s starting to fight a smile, and that’s the most tease Derek’s heard in his voice for weeks. 

"Then I don’t know how the hell else you think you’re going to get down." 

"Shit," Stiles says, soft and resigned. "I seriously hate my life." And he pushes off, and lets go, and werewolf or not there’s only so much Derek can do. He manages to do a decent impression of a crash mat, in any case, lands on his back under Stiles’ swearing weight and winces at the broken branch in the small of his back and the leaf mold sneaking under his shirt. 

"Woah," Stiles says, and Derek blinks up at him, at the way the moonlight has dilated his pupils; "deja vu." But this time it’s Derek who leans in, pushes himself up on his elbows and presses his mouth to Stiles’. It lasts longer than the last time, no one springing away, and Derek runs his tongue along Stiles’ lower lip and swallows his gasp, bringing one hand up to the back of Stiles’ neck as he deepens the kiss. 

"This is okay?" Derek asks, when he finally pulls away, and Stiles grins bright and wide. 

"Obviously okay," he says. 

"You avoided me for over a week," Derek says, still a little hesitant. 

"I thought you were mad at me," Stiles says.

"I thought you didn’t want this," Derek says, and Stiles leans in to kiss him quickly again. There’s a look of resolve on his face now. He brings up his hand to touch Derek’s cheek.

"I’m sorry I apologized," he says. "I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have done that."

Derek shrugs. ”It’s fine,” he says, and grins.


End file.
